I often like to think of God as an artist. We offer him a canvas to work with, which is sometimes blank and sometimes has parts already filled in. The analogy only goes so far, of course, but it seems like our primary role is to be the easel that holds the canvas! This blog entry is about being that easel. Bear with me as I explain.
Three years ago this month I flew to Belize with my friend Mike Egusa. Mike is the pastor at Mission Springs Community Church now, but about 15-years ago he and his family lived in Belize for a year running a facility that was part of a ministry I was leading.
In Belize we met two more great friends, Mark and Adrienne Parcher, who had flown up from Costa Rica. They were serving with Latin American Missions at the time, but previously had been neighbors and friends. Mark and I prayed together almost every week for 15-years.
The other member of our group was Gordon Aeschliman, who flew in from…well, I don’t remember. Possibly Arizona, possibly South Africa. Gordon was (and still is) running a program D’Aun and I started years ago called Target Earth. That organization’s facility in Belize was the point of all of us converging together.
Bottom line, it was on this trip that Gordon offered to turn over the facility to my family foundation. It was also during this meeting that Mark and Adrienne agreed to move to Belize and begin exploring what we can do to make a big impact in the country. We went into this as a blank canvas, hoping and praying that God was the artist of something miraculous.
That was three years ago. Today, God’s artistry is pretty clear. PathLight has a student sponsorship program — a really good one that impacts students deeply and significantly — with forty teenagers enrolled. PathLight has done two teacher training conferences (which are recognized by the Ministry of Education) and through that has given 50 teachers new skills. That alone impacts 1500 students if you assume each teacher has 30 in a class. PathLight has also initiated a Volunteer Teacher program where volunteers from the States and Canada work in a Belize school for 3-9 months. Finally, PathLight has hosted, led and organized dozens of short term service teams that add specific value to the Belizean educational system.
Throughout all of those programs, hope is being provided for at-risk students by integrating faith and learning in their lives.
What has struck me recently is worth mentioning on this blog. In three short years we have made a significant impact on two villages near our facility, plus dozens if not hundreds of people outside of those villages. The net result is we can say that PathLight now serves 1% of the entire population of Belize. Think about that….1% of the entire country has been directly impacted by PathLight’s work. And it’s only been 3-years!!!
At a recent staff retreat, which was followed by a board retreat, I challenged our team to think about what it would take to grow from impacting 1% of the population to 10% of the population. Outrageous, you think? Maybe. But we are not the artist of this, we simply are the easel that hold up the canvas. I think God can do it if we don’t drop the canvas.
I encounter a lot of folks who do good work in Belize. But most organizations operating there are what I’d call Mom/Pop operations. Small, under-resourced, and without the plan to grow in a strategic way. Please, I’m not criticizing these groups. I love small organizations! They are the grassroots of ministry. But I do think a broader, more strategic view is missing in Belize. There is nobody in Belize doing it. There is no World Vision, no Compassion, no IJM….really, no major Christian organizations at all, save the Salvation Army, and they are primarily in one city.
So there is a void in leadership. There is no nationwide strategic thinking by a Christian non-profit organization. And as with most nationwide visions, the best place to begin is in the educational system. Here you encounter children, parents, the government, religious organizations, health issues, drug issues, violence and gang issues…the list goes on. Engaging the educational system means engaging the entire community.
Because of that, PathLight has the opportunity to make a huge difference in Belize. If we can do this much in just 3-years, imagine what we can do in 5, 10 or 20? God’s artistry just might create a masterpiece!
I’ll post things about PathLight regularly on this blog, but the way to really stay connected is to sign up for email updates on the pathlight.org website. Please do so, perhaps as a favor to me. Thanks!